Peak Oil Meets the Nuclear Fuel Cycle

I have good reason to believe that the peak oil is not true. Or not as drastic as it is made out

Here's  couple of snapshots:

1/ Norway's Statoil is currently building a 1.3 GW power plant with the objective of producing CO2. Yes you heard me right. The electricity generated is a by-product.

They plan to compress the gas and pump it under the north sea into oil reserves to  force out more oil. They estimate that the oil taken from the north sea so far equals 8% of the total of what could be taken out if it was forced out by pumping CO2 in. Notice also that in some circumstances pumping in the CO2 would also count as carbon sequestration. This project is not a pipe dream: They are building foundations now. Once proven it will change the landscape completely.

2/ SASOL is busy licencing its synfuel technology to several parties. This well proven technology undermines the arguments of oil geologists that we're running out of oil. Because Coal=Oil. They need to take their blinkers off. For example New Zealand has massive lignite desosits in the  south island. Any one of which could provide enough fuel for that country's transport needs for a 100 years. An old friend at SASOL told me two years ago that their breakeven for the process was $25/barrel.

So don't hold your breath - there's oil all over the place. The problem with oil at the moment is that the USA sat on its hands for 25 years and through lack of an energy strategy, allowed itself to become beholden to middle eastern tyrants. (Who now fund wars against it). But the market is responding with mega projects to increase oil production, reduce oil dependence and improve efficiencies.

Watch for an oil glut in five years.

 

 

 

 

 

Converting lignite to liquid hydrocarbons?  Fischer-Tropsch again.  Not good on the net energy front.  For starters, you have the low-grade carbon as the fuel sorce.  Lignite is the lowest form of coal.  Highest ash, highest water, lowest BTU's per ton.  Next, use that as the fuel to separate hydrogen from water using steam and a catalyst.  Then refine the lignite, which has been presumably coked by some process into a purer form of carbon using lignite as the fuel.  Next put the hydrogen and coke into a reaction vessel and heat and pressurize it, again with lignite as the fuel.  At every stage it gives off carbon dioxide as a waste product.  Then there's the question of what to do with the toxic ash.  Then there's the overall energy in versus energy out calculation.  Using lignite to manufacture liquid hydrocarbons will be enormously inefficient and poluting.  The rates of production will be a trickle compared to demand.  Fischer-Tropsch was an act of desperation by the Third Reich.  So now we're in the same boat?

Carbon dioxide injection misses the point.  It's production RATES that matter.  That oil is years from coming on line.  Not every field can use that technology to get the remaining oil out of the  ground.  As far as carbon sequestration goes, no such technology has been proven.  You can also bet that a lot of the carbon dioxide will follow the oil back out of the well, just as sea water follows the oil in Ghawar.  So, as the rest of the world continues to sink into decline, the Norwegians are tinkering with a new way to squeeze a lemon. 

The US and Canada are sitting on huge untapped reserves.  As production decreases in the mideast, those reserves will come online, because the PTB will make it so.  They'll even promote it as 'environmentally friendly' to the elementary kids and the boob tube sheeple.

The authors of the report use the term EROI which is Energy Return On Investment - a shorter but identical concept to EROEI. Any figure that is less than 1.0 shows a net "loss" of energy. Break even for EROEI is 1.0. The figure 0.8, for example, would mean a net energy loss of 20%. That is, it would take 20% MORE energy to acquire (or produce) the energy than you would get by using it...NOT a good deal. Look at 1940's Oil and gas - it shows an EROEI of greater than 100 for discoveries, which means that at the well head (where the oil comes out of the ground), the energy returned by the oil was more than 100 TIMES the energy it took to extract it...a VERY GOOD deal!]

PROCESS		EROI
Nonrenewable
Oil and gas (domestic wellhead)
1940's		Discoveries > 100.0
1970's		Production 23.0, discoveries 8.0
Coal (mine mouth)
1950's		80.0
1970's		30.0
Oil shale		0.7 to 13.3
Coal liquefaction		0.5 to 8.2
Geopressured gas		1.0 to 5.0

1/ Norway's Statoil is currently building a 1.3 GW power plant with the objective of producing CO2. Yes you heard me right. The electricity generated is a by-product.

This is a sign of desperation on Statoil's part. Do you think that if there were easier plays in that province they would be resorting to spending an enormous amount of energy and money to squeeze out at few more barrels from the fast declining North Sea?

2/ SASOL is busy licencing its synfuel technology to several parties. This well proven technology undermines the arguments of oil geologists that we're running out of oil. Because Coal=Oil. They need to take their blinkers off. For example New Zealand has massive lignite desosits in the south island. Any one of which could provide enough fuel for that country's transport needs for a 100 years. An old friend at SASOL told me two years ago that their breakeven for the process was $25/barrel.

Firstly, this is another sign that we are or near the peak of world oil production. Why would anyone resort to such ruinously energy intensive ways of, again, squeezing oil from stone. Secondly you seem to have conveniently overlooked the small matter of global warming as coal is the most polluting fossil fuel. Thirdly I do not believe, from the evidence available, that anyone can get that much oil using Fischer-Tropsch. I believe the best return is 3 barrels of oil for every 1 of oil equvalent. Hardly sparkling figures when even poor old mainland USA can still get 8 to 10 barrels of oil for every 1 used to produce it. Not without using some extremely creative accounting, but hey, the world is full of rubbery numbers these days. We only have to look at the phoney baloney taking place on Wall St to understand this is so.

So don't hold your breath - there's oil all over the place. The problem with oil at the moment is that the USA sat on its hands for 25 years and through lack of an energy strategy, allowed itself to become beholden to middle eastern tyrants. (Who now fund wars against it). But the market is responding with mega projects to increase oil production, reduce oil dependence and improve efficiencies.

These are very sweeping claims, and yet you offer no proof whatsoever for their validity. Nor can you ever produce it.

I'll start to worry about peak oil, only when the military starts to horde oil.

Nothing will ever trump the military ability to horde resources -- all under the banner of national security. If the US military thought for one second that in 25 years their equipment would not have fuel, instantly we would find that the entire oil industry would be militarized.

"If the US military thought for one second that in 25 years their equipment would not have fuel, instantly we would find that the entire oil industry would be militarized."

And you don't think it already is...??

All Economic Costs: $480 a Barrel

Milton Copulus, the head of the National Defense Council Foundation, has a different view. And as the former principal energy analyst for the Heritage Foundation, a 12-year member of the National Petroleum Council, a Reagan White House alum, and an advisor to half a dozen U.S. Energy Secretaries, various Secretaries of Defense, and two directors of the CIA, he knows his stuff.

After taking into account the direct and indirect costs of oil, the economic costs of oil supply disruption, and military expenditures, he estimates the true cost of oil at a stunning $480 a barrel.

That would make the "real" cost of filling up a family sedan about $220, and filling up a large SUV about $325 (when oil was $10 a barrel cheaper than it is now!).

Due to the enormous military cost of protecting Persian Gulf imports, the hidden cost of oil from that region amounts to $7.41 per gallon of gasoline. The cheapest gas out in my part of the Bay Area is $3.11 a gallon for regular. Add them together, and the true cost of my gas is probably around $10.52 a gallon.

We use 21 million barrels a day of oil. At $480 a barrel, that's $10 trillion a year draining from the national coffers.

And we haven't even tried to count the blood.

But we're not done yet.

MILITARY PREPARES FOR PEAK OIL

Acknowledges Global Peak Oil Likely Happened in 2005
Surrounding Military Installations With Renewables
Preparing For Frequent Blackouts

by
Michael Kane
Staff Writer

© Copyright 2006, From The Wilderness Publications, www.fromthewilderness.com. All Rights Reserved. This story may NOT be posted on any Internet web site without express written permission. Contact admin@copvcia.com. May be circulated, distributed or transmitted for non-profit purposes only.

March 30, 2006 1700 PST (FTW) - The Army has officially acknowledged Global Peak Oil likely occurred in 2005.

The Army Corp. of Engineers completed a report in September of 2005 titled Energy Trends and Their Implications for U.S. Army Installations. Though completed six months ago, it was not publicly available until recently. The report focuses entirely on Peak Oil, and lists the date for Global Peak Oil as falling somewhere between 2005 and 2020.¹ But, further in the report, 2005 is explicitly stated as being the year that global oil production likely peaked <MORE>

Personally, I'd take Peak Oil seriously when the military does.

Mike

What ho?  I didn't mean for this thread to become a discussion on the merits of Peak Oil.  For the purposes of this discussion, it's a given.  My concern is that when the hydrocarbon economy sputters to a halt, how will the remains of the nuclear fuel cycle be delt with?  We currenly have the means to move earth, smelt metals, produce concrete, marshal labor, transport commodities, etc., on an industrial scale.  How does one stand watch for 25,000 years on a problem that if it goes worst case, would demand an answer that we currenly may not be able to supply?  Remember the other half of M. King Hubbert's warning.  In the not too distant future all the metal we enjoy and take for granted will be scattered and corroded into oblivion.  The working of metal is a key component in industrial culture.  Take it away and what are you left with?

The worst aspect of nuclear is that the energy required to decommission the site at the end of its useful life will be forgotten about until it is due, and by then (say 2050) energy will be so expensive and unavailable that we will not be in a position to decommission at all -

"Do you want to decommission that old nuclear plant, or do you want to keep the lights on ?"  

http://www.stormsmith.nl/report20071013/... "Nuclear Power: the energy balance" contains this diagram showing the energy in and out over time, which I have put at www.peakoil.org.au/Storm.Smith.energy.bu...